Overwatch 2 players split over new self-healing passive feature
BlizzardBlizzard confirmed to be looking for a complete balance change in Overwatch 2, which will involve a new feature to take some pressure off Support players and overhaul the entire kit of every Tank and DPS Hero. Here’s what the Overwatch 2 community said about it.
Overwatch 2 Season 8 is almost over, and Blizzard wanted to give players a scope of what 2024 will feature for its iconic FPS. In the latest Director’s Take, Game Director Aaron Keller commented that they were trying to improve the teamwork dynamic, and to do so, devs are considering a major change for DPS and Tanks for Season 9.
“In Season 9, both Tank and Damage heroes will get a modified, tuned-down version of the Support self-healing passive. This should give non-Support players more options in terms of sustaining themselves. It should also take some of the pressure off Support players to keep everyone alive since individual players now have more control of their own health pool,” Keller explained.
Overwatch 2 fans took it to Reddit to debate how this could impact game balance for the future season, but also started to wonder if this feature wouldn’t render Health Packs completely useless. “I guess I don’t understand, Health Packs are already on the map, players already have access to self-sustain,” commented Redditor ‘NervyDeath.’
Other fans pointed out that Blizzard devs could be planning to change the way Health Packs work since Keller described that they were “looking for new ways of improving the core gameplay experience.” Overwatch 2 Game Director described that devs were talking about introducing an ally-only mini-map feature to accompany the Ping and Spawn Together system, although he clarified that its inclusion was highly unlikely.
“Let’s be honest. A lot of pub/casual players either ignore health packs completely or literally don’t know where they are on the map. Unironically – the mini-map feature he said likely wouldn’t ship would help alleviate this. I think if more people knew where the health packs were on each individual map, for both attacks and defenders, that would help a ton,” commented Redditor ‘Business717.’
Some players also commented that a good alternative to self-healing and Health Packs was also to enable buffs to HP collection, similar to Reaper’s passive ability that allows him to heal himself while attacking his opponents.
“I’ve pinged healthpacks next to my critical allies, and they rather wait in the open for the support to get back and die while waiting. For this, I wished for a minimap that would show them, but I’m sure that wouldn’t help X% of players regardless. Interested to see how this watered-down heal works. But I’m okay with role passives going away too and instead giving each character a unique passive,” pointed out Redditor ‘SnooDogs1340.’
Blizzard haven’t confirmed yet what players should expect for Overwatch 2 Season 9, but we’ll keep you posted for any updates. If you want to know more about the game, check what Overwatch 2’s Quicker Play is about or why Illari has been temporarily removed from Competitive.
